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UNPREPAREDNESS

[1861 . John T. Morse, in his biography of Lincoln, which possesses somehow the authority of a contemporary document as well as the interest of an artistic study of a great man, wrote, "Historians say rhetorically that the North sprang to arms; and it really would have done so if there had been any arms to spring to; but muskets were scarce.' The correspondence in Volume I, Series III of the Official Records amply confirms this statement. The governors of the several States, in their communications to the United States War Department, began by asking for muskets and cannon; soon they were begging for them. Ohio was undoubtedly a fair example of the States west of the Alleghanies. McClellan, who had been appointed appointed majorgeneral of her volunteers, made an inspection of the State arsenal and found, a few boxes of smooth-bore muskets, rusted and damaged; two or three smooth-bore 6-pounders which had been honey-combed by firing salutes; a confused pile of mildewed harness which had been once used for artillery horses. As he went out of the door he said half humorously, half sadly, "A fine stock of munitions on which to begin a great war."2 The governor of Iowa's demand of the Secretary of War, "for God's sake send us some arms,' exemplified the feeling of all. All the States wanted rifledmuskets, of which the government had only a small supply; and when they received old flint-lock muskets or the same percussioned, they felt that due attention was not being paid to their necessities. Morton, the governor of Indiana, reported that the arms received by his State were of "an inferior character, being old muskets rifled out; in very many instances," he added, "the bayonets have to be driven on with a hammer and many others are so loose that they can be shaken off." "Our boys," wrote the governor of 2 J. D. Cox, B. & L., I, 90.

1 Morse, I, 252.

31

Iowa, "don't feel willing to carry old-fashioned muskets to the field to meet men armed with better weapons.' Appreciating the impotence of the Federal government, Massachusetts sent an agent to Europe with money for the purchase of improved arms and New York bought Enfield rifles in England. The governors of the several States begged for accoutrements, uniforms and clothing. There was urgent need of forage caps, infantry trousers, flannel sack coats, flannel shirts, bootees, stockings, great coats and blankets. "The government," wrote the Secretary of War to Morton, "finds itself unable to furnish at once the uniforms and clothing demanded by the large force suddenly brought into service." 1

McClellan wrote of his Ohio troops: "I have never seen so fine a body of men collected together. The material is superb but has no organization or discipline."2 A captain of the regular army who came to muster a number of these regiments into the United States service, looking down the line of stalwart men, clad in the Garibaldi red flannel shirt (for lack of uniforms) exclaimed, “My God! that such men should be food for powder!" 3 "Good-looking and energetic young fellows, too good to be food for gunpowder," wrote John Hay of the Sixth Massachusetts! And the same remark might have been made of nearly all the threemonths men from every State.

Before the end of April, Lincoln had made up his mind that he had embarked on a long war. The quotas of threemonths volunteers were rapidly filled and, as more men came forward, he determined to turn the prolonged outburst of patriotism to account by prevailing upon the late-comers to enlist for three years. On May 3, he increased the army

1 O. R., III, I.

2 O. R., LI, Pt. I, 333.

J. D. Cox, B. & L., I, 97.

4 J. Hay, I, 13.

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UNPREPAREDNESS

[1861

by proclamation.1 The response to his different calls for troops was thus described in his Fourth-of-July message: "One of the greatest perplexities of the government is to avoid receiving troops faster than it can provide for them. In a word, the people will save their government if the government itself will do its part only indifferently well." Our Secretary of War (Cameron), to judge from the official correspondence during the first months of the war, appears to have been good-natured, inefficient, short-sighted,

a man

of narrow views. Lincoln, on the other hand, keenly alive to the situation, was repeatedly urging the War Department to accept the men who offered themselves for three years and take the chance of providing them with arms, uniforms and monthly pay; thus, in the beginning, even as in the later years of his presidency, his first thought was for the chief requirement of his side; he would have the men; the provision to be made for them could be left to the future.

The unpreparedness of the Southern people was similar to that of the Northern, but their difficulty in procuring arms and ammunition was greater. Accustomed as they had been to buy their powder from Northern factories, they were now obliged to develop this industry within their own borders. With less money and inferior credit they found it more difficult to make purchases abroad; moreover the blockade soon became a serious impediment to their commerce. On May 3, General Scott wrote, "We rely greatly on the sure operation of a complete blockade of the Atlantic and Gulf ports soon to commence.” 2 Mrs. Chesnut, who had dined with Jefferson Davis in Richmond on July 16,

1 42,034 volunteers for three years; 22,714 for the regular army; 18,000 seamen for the navy. O. R., III, I, 145.

2 On April 27 the President had extended the blockade to Virginia and North Carolina. O.R., III, I, 122.

CH. I]

UNPREPAREDNESS

33

set down in her diary, "We begin to cry out for more ammunition and already the blockade is beginning to shut it all out." The Confederate Secretary of War [Walker] seemed to lack geniality and showed in his correspondence with the governors more acerbity than was desirable in an officer of a new government organizing for a protracted conflict. On the other hand, Davis was at first superior in administrative capacity to Lincoln. His West Point training, army service in Mexico and efficient conduct of the War Department for four years had made him familiar with military details which Lincoln had now to master with painful effort. Lee, as commander of the Virginia forces, was an efficient aid to the governor in Richmond, which city was destined to be the most important military point in the Confederacy; but, affected by the disposition that prevailed on each side to overrate the other, he, like the governor of Iowa, thought that the enemy had much superior arms.1

In perusing the confidential Union and Confederate correspondence between the bombardment of Sumter and the battle of Bull Run, one is struck with the unreadiness of both South and North for war and with the contrast generally between military conditions in this country and in Europe. In 1870, the French minister of war told his colleagues and the Emperor that France was ready, more than ready, and to a commission of the Corps Legislatif, declared, "So ready are we that, if the war were to last two years, not a gaiter button would be found wanting." Within ten days he had transported by railroad to the frontier nearly 200,000 men with cannon, horses and munitions. Meanwhile Bismarck was asking Moltke, "What are our prospects of victory?" "I believe,” replied Moltke, "that we are more than a match for them always with the reservation that no 1 O. R., LI, Pt. I, IV, I; Chesnut; N. & H.; IV.

D

Alie

Vous etes Allemande

34

JEFFERSON DAVIS

[1861

one can foresee the issue of a great battle." And "a rapid outbreak is, on the whole, more favorable to us than delay." In a little over a fortnight's time, Moltke had a Prussian army more than twice as large as the French on the French frontier.1

Had either South or North had the comparatively imperfect preparation of France, with no similar development on the part of the other, that side would have swept everything before it. Had both South and North had the perfect organization of Prussia, the war might have been shorter. But the Prussian military system was impossible in the United States and even if possible, it would not have been considered worth while. The Americans, like the Athenians of the time of Pericles, then preferred "to meet danger with a light heart but without laborious training.

Davis, in his message of April 29 to his Congress, maintained that Lincoln's call for 75,000 troops was a declaration of war against the Confederacy and he asked them to devise measures for their defence. Arguing that each State was sovereign and "in the last resort the sole judge as well of its wrongs as of the mode and measure of redress," he justified secession and the formation of the Confederate States. "We feel that our cause is just and holy," he declared. . . . All we ask is to be let alone; that those who never held power over us shall not now attempt our subjugation by arms. This we will, this we must, resist to the direst extremity.". Davis as President was obliged to make the best out of a situation which he regarded with considerable misgiving. He had been averse to war and had wished his Southern brethren less precipitate. Toward the end of June

1 Ollivier, XV; de la Gorce, VI; Walpole, II; Ency. Brit. article Leboeuf; La Rousse, ibid.; von Sybel; Bismarck.

2 Jowett, II, 39. Danger of war is meant.